Last night a current affairs show broke a story that’s been flying around the internet for a few days now. You may have heard it, it’s the one about the guy in ministry who claimed to be dying of cancer and wasn’t. Now sadly as with most things we only really know what the media wants us to know, we are given edited and sometimes incomplete information. There was so much I wanted to know and so much that frustrated me.
For me I think the biggest struggle was the fact that even his family believed his lies. Now I’m married and there is no way my husband would go through something like that without me having met with his drs and gotten very involved, and not just me but then I’m in a family that has drs and nurses in it so you know they’d want the details. Now please understand I’m not coming down on his family I am, like many, simply trying to understand.
I would like to add another facet to this story and that is he is not the only person I know of to have played this part. For the sake of this story I’m going to call this woman Tessa. Tessa came into our lives as a friend of a friend. We welcomed her in and hadn’t known her very long before she announced she had been diagnosed with cancer. We cried with her, offered her our support and so on. During this time she also got engaged. Then for some reason she stopped coming around.
Long story short, it turned out she was a con woman. We later figured out she stopped coming around because she knew we’d tumble to the fact she was lying, as not long before this my mum had died from cancer. Unfortunately the lies didn’t come out until she’d made a mess of her fiancée financially and emotionally screwed over him and others. This little event didn’t come close to lasting two years like this minister’s deception.
It’s easy to sit back, condemn and throw stones but the story cannot end here. I am sure many, many people have been hurt and feel abused by this minister, as someone who has had a loved one die from cancer I’m disgusted at his deception, and yet there is more to be said.
I want to just throw some random thoughts out there.
1. It takes a lot of effort to live a lie like this, it was something he had to choose to do everyday for a very long time, it’s not something he simply fell into.
2. He says he didn’t do it for money, even though it seems quite a bit is involved, that being the case there had to be some payout for what he did. Is it possible it was recognition? The buzz from being known and admired.
3. Last night, and this was the first time I heard this bit, he said part of the reason he did it was to hide his problem with pornography. Don’t get me started there.
It strikes me quite clearly that this is a wake-up call for the church regarding accountability. As someone on the outside looking in, or rather someone who was on the inside and isn’t so sure where she stands now, I’m seeing a lot of surface, a lot of emotional - a cynic might say manipulation. I am also seeing the church making modern day golden calves (Exodus 32). We are putting people on pedestals. This is dangerous, the only one we should worship is God.
Sit up and take notice church, we need to be careful, we need to be accountable, we need to be prepared to ask and answer the hard and personal questions of each other. Above all we need to ensure that popularity and emotion never outstrip the core message of God and his love for everyone of us no matter what we’ve done.
For me I think the biggest struggle was the fact that even his family believed his lies. Now I’m married and there is no way my husband would go through something like that without me having met with his drs and gotten very involved, and not just me but then I’m in a family that has drs and nurses in it so you know they’d want the details. Now please understand I’m not coming down on his family I am, like many, simply trying to understand.
I would like to add another facet to this story and that is he is not the only person I know of to have played this part. For the sake of this story I’m going to call this woman Tessa. Tessa came into our lives as a friend of a friend. We welcomed her in and hadn’t known her very long before she announced she had been diagnosed with cancer. We cried with her, offered her our support and so on. During this time she also got engaged. Then for some reason she stopped coming around.
Long story short, it turned out she was a con woman. We later figured out she stopped coming around because she knew we’d tumble to the fact she was lying, as not long before this my mum had died from cancer. Unfortunately the lies didn’t come out until she’d made a mess of her fiancée financially and emotionally screwed over him and others. This little event didn’t come close to lasting two years like this minister’s deception.
It’s easy to sit back, condemn and throw stones but the story cannot end here. I am sure many, many people have been hurt and feel abused by this minister, as someone who has had a loved one die from cancer I’m disgusted at his deception, and yet there is more to be said.
I want to just throw some random thoughts out there.
1. It takes a lot of effort to live a lie like this, it was something he had to choose to do everyday for a very long time, it’s not something he simply fell into.
2. He says he didn’t do it for money, even though it seems quite a bit is involved, that being the case there had to be some payout for what he did. Is it possible it was recognition? The buzz from being known and admired.
3. Last night, and this was the first time I heard this bit, he said part of the reason he did it was to hide his problem with pornography. Don’t get me started there.
It strikes me quite clearly that this is a wake-up call for the church regarding accountability. As someone on the outside looking in, or rather someone who was on the inside and isn’t so sure where she stands now, I’m seeing a lot of surface, a lot of emotional - a cynic might say manipulation. I am also seeing the church making modern day golden calves (Exodus 32). We are putting people on pedestals. This is dangerous, the only one we should worship is God.
Sit up and take notice church, we need to be careful, we need to be accountable, we need to be prepared to ask and answer the hard and personal questions of each other. Above all we need to ensure that popularity and emotion never outstrip the core message of God and his love for everyone of us no matter what we’ve done.
3 comments:
many questions here... but i agree that we (the church) need to accept some responsibility for setting people up to be superstars and then wondering why they have clay feet.
Kylie,
My first pastor, Robert W. Finney, taught his congregation something wonderful on the subject of trust. He preached, "Don't you dare trust me; I do not deserve your faith because I am a man and I can disappoint you. You can like me, you can love me, you can even place confidence in me, but your trust belongs only to God and if you place it anywhere else you will be sorry." That one message stands out in my mind as the greatest thing Pastor Finney taught at Claiborne Street Missionary Baptist Church.
We are all human and weak. We all fail. We all need love. When I look at the world that way, it is easier to forgive. On the other hand, if I look at a human being as a god (which is what it means to put someone on a pedestal), how can I possibly forgive them when they fall? Who am I to forgive a god? That's the danger of worshipping a pastor, a preacher, or anyone--putting myself in the position of being unable to forgive and thus unforgiveable myself. (Matthew 6:12, Luke 6:37)
Diane L. Harris
http://www.steppingintothelight.net
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